Organon F

Volume 32, August 2025, Issue 3, Pages 262–299

ISSN 2585-7150 (online)

I will consider two views about the structure of reality: metaphysical foundationalism (all grounded entities are fully grounded in ungrounded entities) and metaphysical infinitism (there are infinite chains of grounding that lack a foundation). Foundationalists motivate their view by appealing to an intuition that there must be a fundamental level that is the source of reality (Schaffer) or causal capacity (Trogdon) of grounded entities because a grounded entity inherits its reality or causal capacity from its ground and there would be a vicious infinite regress otherwise. I will argue that this argument is not successful as the source of reality or causal capacity of an infinite chain can be its cause. For example, this source can be the direct physical cause, the first physical cause or a Prime Mover. A vicious infinite regress is avoided this way too because there is no transference of the same status ad infinitum.

Fundamentality; metaphysical foundationalism; metaphysical infinitism; vicious infinite regress.

Author

Savvas Ioannou

Affiliation

University of Cyprus

Address

Department of Classics and Philosophy, University of Cyprus, 1 Eressou Street, First Floor, P.O. Box 20537, CY-1678, Nicosia, Cyprus

E-mail

savvasioa@hotmail.com 

Received

7 June 2024

Revised

23 March 2025

Accepted

31 March 2025

Publishers

Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

APA

Ioannou, S. (2025). Source of Reality/Causal Capacity: Outside of the Priority Chain? Organon F, 32(3), 262–299. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2025.32301

Chicago

Ioannou, Savvas. 2025. "Source of Reality/Causal Capacity: Outside of the Priority Chain?" Organon F 32 (3): 262–299. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2025.32301

Harvard

Ioannou, S. (2025). Source of Reality/Causal Capacity: Outside of the Priority Chain? Organon F, 32(3), pp. 262–299. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2025.32301

© Savvas Ioannou

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